DNS automation: Add multiple DNS entries with Gateway
Gateway is BlueCat’s application for creating custom workflows to automate common tasks, reducing day-to-day manual effort. Learn how to save time with bulk-importing, one of its most frequently used features.
Key takeawaysThis key takeaway was generated through LLMs crawling the page and coming up with an overview of the content.This article summarizes Episode II of BlueCat’s Making Gateway Work for You webinar series, which focused on Gateway’s bulk import capabilities to automate common network administration tasks. It explains how Gateway overcomes Address Manager (BAM) import limits by allowing any API-supported object type, at any volume (bounded only by computing resources), to be imported while handling dependencies, errors, validations, dynamic values, tagging, and scheduling. The outcome is a faster, more flexible workflow for importing networks, host records, multiple DNS entries, and user-defined fields—reducing manual effort and enabling large-scale imports that BAM’s native tools cannot support.
What specific bulk import limitations in BlueCat Address Manager (BAM) does Gateway address?
BAM’s native import functionality supports basic imports but restricts both the number of records and the types of data you can import in a single operation—BAM is limited to 5,000 records per import. Gateway removes those constraints by allowing bulk import of any record type that BlueCat’s API can create, at any volume limited only by your computing power. In practice this enables imports ranging from many thousands up to millions of records, and supports importing IP addresses, resource records, UDF values, and multiple DNS entries from CSV or other sources.
How does Gateway help handle invalid data, errors, and dependencies during bulk imports?
Gateway provides advanced import controls to manage invalid data, conflicts, and dependencies encountered during bulk uploads. During the webinar, the presenter demonstrated handling duplicates, typos, and other invalid entries while importing multiple host records, showing how Gateway can detect and resolve errors or conflicts, apply validations and rules, and manage potential dependencies between objects. Additionally, Gateway supports dynamic values, values from multiple sources, tagging, metadata enrichment, and cleanup or consolidation of data as part of the import workflow to ensure consistent results.
Where can I find examples, documentation, and sample workflows to get started with Gateway bulk imports?
BlueCat provides several resources referenced in the webinar: the full Gateway documentation (article 8618) on BlueCat Customer Care—which includes the Gateway object model and API access (login required)—and the BlueCat Labs repository on GitHub that hosts BlueCat-provided and community-contributed workflow examples. The webinar also linked short how-to videos demonstrating simple bulk imports, network imports, and importing multiple host records while handling invalid data. These resources contain example code and sample workflows such as adding IP addresses to help you develop and test Gateway bulk import processes.
In case you missed the second session of our monthly Making Gateway Work for You webinar series, we whipped up a quick summary to get you caught up.
(Context: Gateway is BlueCat’s fast and flexible application for creating custom workflows to automate common tasks that reduce the day-to-day manual effort for network admins.)
Episode II was devoted to bulk importing, one of the most frequently used Gateway capabilities (because it’s a huge time saver). Integration and Automation Lead Chris Storz walked us through:
- Importing networks and host records
- Handling invalid data and resolving errors/conflicts
- Dealing with potential dependencies
- Cleaning up and consolidating data as you load
How to add multiple DNS entries
BlueCat Address Manager (BAM) alone has basic import functionality, but there is a limit on how many records and the type of data that you can import in one shot. Gateway removes this limitation, allowing users to bulk import any record type, at any volume. Want to add multiple DNS entries from a csv file? We can do that. Whether it’s IP addresses, resource records, or user-defined function (UDF) values, any object that can be created by BlueCat’s API can now be bulk imported using Gateway. And while BAM is limited to 5,000 records at a go, Gateway’s only limit is your computing power. A million records? It can be done.
Admins can also use Gateway to handle more advanced aspects of bulk imports like dependencies and errors, validations and rules, dynamic values and values from multiple sources, automatic and scheduled uploads, tagging, and other advanced metadata.
Time to Get Bulk Importing!
Get started with a simple bulk import:
Bulk import networks:
Import multiple host records while handling invalid data from duplicates and typos:
During the webinar, we were asked about the availability of object lists or other documentation with examples to follow. We’ve got you covered there. BlueCat’s full Gateway documentation (article 8618) on BlueCat Customer Care provides a run-down of our full object model within Gateway (login required). It includes access to all of BlueCat’s APIs as well as commonly used objects. And when you’re ready to develop workflows, we have both BlueCat-provided and community-contributed examples on our BlueCat Labs repository on GitHub. It’s a great resource to get started with workflows, such as adding IP addresses, with example code provided.
To hear all the Q&As and learn more about Gateway bulk import use cases, watch the full session. And if you didn’t catch it, be sure to check out last month’s episode on Getting Started with Gateway.
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Rebekah Taylor is a former journalist turned freelance writer and editor who has been translating technical speak into prose for more than two decades. Her first job in the early 2000s was at a small start-up called VMware. She holds degrees from Cornell University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
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